Tower climber sentenced to 10 days in jail

SEATTLE (AP) - A woman was sentenced Monday to serve 10 days in jail for climbing an electrical tower, where she spouted flames and danced topless to the amazement of drivers on nearby Interstate 5.

Ara Tripp climbed the 180-foot tower on the morning of Sept. 8 as a stunt to protest discrimination against women and laws that allow men to take their shirts off but not women. Tripp was a man before undergoing a sex-change operation.

Atop the tower, she took off her shirt and began dancing, occasionally taking swigs from a vodka bottle, spitting out the liquor and setting it aflame.

Traffic on a nearby interstate bridge over the Lake Washington Ship Canal slowed to a near-standstill during the hour or so Tripp remained on the tower.